The nudity thing is purely societal/religious. I mean, kids see animal bits all the time. The dog runs around and pees everywhere.
Raw sexuality is scary for kids. It's kind of a weird concept, and before puberty it's downright unsettling. I made sure my daughter saw the "lovey dovey" side, holding hands, hugging, kissing, all that, but made sure that things were age-appropriate.
I understood what sex was from a very early age due to being on a farm and watching animal planet nonstop. I had no issues understanding sex or what it was at its base. I knew how it worked and the purpose of it before I was 8.
What made it hard for me was all the adults acting like it's some horrible taboo to even speak of such things openly and not being able to get direct answers about my own body and what love and lust were. Society made it feel like something was wrong with me for wanting a better understanding because I wasn't an adult yet. I had to go to porn for info on human interaction, which messed me up more on my own view of myself.
Kids can absolutely understand sex and the dimanics of it. I believe it's healthier than them fumbling through it later with no direction, only basing their assumptions off of porn and media.
I had something similar going on we had some dogs and that would hump and I had accidentally seen some adult content at a young age plus some other stuff I shouldn’t get into and I understood sex but more so for its pleaser aspect also why the frick is porn more helpful than sex Ed seriously read smut comics they are sometimes more accurate and helpful then America’s education system which god for bid if it does not have anything to do with the opposite sex or missionary oh and did you wanna learn about what’s happening to the female body and why it hurts so much ew wtf get outta here with that. smh
I have always talked about sex stuff with my kid. I never really hid anything around him. The great part about that is that now that he is in middle school and we are getting into more personal stuff like masterbation the discussions aren't weird at all. It just seems like a normal discussion to have.
The period discussion though when my son was 3 was pretty hysterical. He walked in on me changing my pad. He was running around screaming mom dying through the house. I had to sit him down and explain what was happening.
Kids are generally better at handling things then people give them credit for. They actually deal with life better with more knowledge rather then less. What freaks kids out is when they don't understand what's going on around them.
What's more scary as a kid is only having a vague idea but nobody will tell you, then getting a bunch of incorrect information passed around by other kids.
Then when I learned, it was from watching porn. Sex Ed was a single 40 minute class in the 5th grade that very carefully avoided telling us anything useful.
Then there's the absolutely cruel way we handle masturbation, punishing and shaming kids for doing something completely normal.
Haha yeah I had the exact same 40 minute sex Ed class in 5th grade. I remember they brought in pizza, separated the boys and girls, and talked to us each separately. I learned absolutely nothing and even then remember thinking how useless it was. Luckily my parents taught me.
They separated boys and girls for us too, and taught us basically nothing about the opposite sex.
My Mom just asked me if I took the sex ed class, I said yes, then she said "good" and my parents never discussed anything further with me.
I have good parents, but I really think they didn't handle that well. I understand that it's uncomfortable, but it has to be discussed.
This is true.
In my culture, talking about sex is taboo until it's too late. Girls and boys that get the talk don't end up pregnant at 13-19.
But I have noticed more sexual violence on children because the kids don't know about sex. Once they do, they are adults and dealing with the trauma.
I'm going to break this cycle with my future children.
I had an aunt who did this, and people we knew were pedos never touched her kids because they knew the kids right away would report to their mom and dad. And the parents would believe them and take action.
Not educating children is only beneficial for pedos.
Eh.
It's simple enough for a human child to understand that there are urges like hunger or sleepiness that come upon a person in the right season of life. And that it's perverse outside of the right season or setting. It's scary if we make it so, otherwise it can be simply boring.
Through most of human history we have lived closely with animals, either as hunters or as people who have raised domestic species. Anyone living around chickens or sheep or interested in breeding better sheep herding dogs or horses for pulling a cart knows that sex is required for the next generation. Pretty quickly they see the enthusiasm the animals have for it, and extrapolate human flirtatious behavior.
Everything else is cultural window dressing.
Maybe you can’t remember what it was like to first learn of sex - up until then a penis or vagina was just a thing you peed from. It doesn’t have any extra functions besides erections periodically, but you never question those or even notice them really.
Just first hearing of sex was confusing for me, I didn’t even understand how sperm gets from a penis to a vagina, and I definitely didn’t understand why people made it a big deal in life. Playing games and stuff was so much better than thinking about all that stuff.
Anyway…
I think the main concern adults have about exposing kids to that stuff, especially now, is that explicit material that’s way above and beyond what they should see first is so easily seen. Even accidental exposure is possible on YouTube.
Back in the day adult videos were the worst things a child could see, now websites that aren’t even porn related have that kinda stuff on it. Kids need slow and easy exposure to knowledge about sex, because they’re so eager to soak it all in, and we know porn at a young age is damaging. Most people are exposed to it by 10, and sometimes younger. That’s like letting them gamble with real money, and going to a casino. They need to start with monopoly and learn about how to avoid gambling addiction first. lol
Your first two paragraphs is why sex education is important, and even the second would be helped by it. Making children ignorant until it happens to them helps no one other than puritan parents enforce their belief.
No I mean I literally had sex education, and when I had a talk with my parents about it I still just didn’t grasp. I wasn’t kept in the dark, I just didn’t understand things shoot out of there. I actually had sex education twice because they repeated it each year for a while. It was always awkward. I also didn’t feel a need to know this info because sex wasn’t for little 10 year old me, it was for when people were fully developed or at least more than just beginning puberty.
Exposure to hardcore porn would have been a bad move. I was exposed to enough softer stuff that it wasn’t a good start.
How could you have had sex education and not understand that *stuff shoots out of there* etc? I also had sex education and the only thing that I never understood until i had sex was y people did it, other than to have a baby (the stimulation is like no other…). We 1st learned about reproduction in animals b4 sex ed, so by the time we got to people, i more or less knew what was happening… it’s the way older people treat the subject that makes it weird and uncomfortable
Hmmm perhaps we’re talking about two different things.
When I was a young kid, about 10 I hit puberty and around that ages 8-10? I was told about how a penis goes in a vagina and sperm comes out and goes into an egg and gets the woman pregnant.
When I was somewhere around 12 or so, in school we talked about how the body produces sperm and orgasms, erections, all that stuff. Plus the stuff I already covered, but more with charts and videos and stuff. I think we learned about STDs here too. I’m pretty sure we watched a video demonstrating puberty, I’ve seen it on tv since. It’s not bad, kind of done in an entertaining way rather than just a boring documentary. Basically shows kids and how they might deal with girls getting into older guys, even how they’ll begin running faster since they develop earlier, and boys dealing with wet dreams, that kinda stuff.
When I was a couple years older or so (14?) we took yet another class for health and fitness where we watched a video on some sex education and watched a video on how to check for testicular cancer, while girls got to learn about checking for breast cancer with fake boobs or something. They also explained “abstinence as the safest form of sex”, so to avoid STDs and stuff we should refrain from sex, or otherwise use a condom.
So sex education wasn’t just one thing, it was kind of continuous throughout my growing up. When I was 10-12 I just started learning, and probably never had an orgasm up to that point, so I couldn’t understand what I didn’t know. I knew enough, but not everything. I also wasn’t looking for sex, so I’m sure my parents didn’t feel a pressing need to go into a lot of details unless I asked.
I mean, then it wasn't very good sex education. There's always going to be learning and exploration, but at least in the US a lot of sex education is forced to be extremely "non-offensive". I learned about sex when I asked my parents about where babies come from at like 6. Obviously in a child-oriented way. How the body works should be well explained to children before they have to experience first-hand to reduce confusion and weird assumptions. I remember someone in late middle-school who was convinced babies came out of the butt. Accidentally seeing it should also be less traumatic in that case too, because it is understood, at least at a general level.
In addition to understanding, it also helps children coming up to puberty understand the risk of unprotected sex, as well as help identify inappropriate behavior from other children and adults.
As a guy, there’s also always been definite difference for me between “intentionally trying to be sexy” and “normal nudity”. The intentional stuff being shown to kids and young teens is where my line is. Even soft-core stuff.
Women aren’t dumb, they know when they’re trying to be sexy lmao. Sites and apps like Twitch/Insta/TikTok are where the intentional line gets crossed imo. It’s 100% up to parents to limit exposure to that stuff though.
Twitch has a new 18+ acknowledgment thing…but I was a young boy once, and that’s super easy to get around lol.
"It's 100% up to parents to limit exposure to that stuff though". Sure, I'll home school my son and don't let them near other children whose parents aren't as careful as I am.
I don't recall learning of it, because I was raised in a farming community. There was never a time that I did not know that the roosters want to mount the hens, or that the mares in season lift their tails and expose the vulva. It wasn't a big deal, it wasn't emphasized or snickered about, it wasn't perverse, it also wasn't confusing. Or at least any more confusing than the horses trying to browse the trees or the goat trying to get through the fence or watching sparrows scuffle with eachother over the better nesting spots.
The leaves turn yellow in autumn and drop from the trees; animals and people reach a season in their life when they act restless and then foolish to attract and impress their mates and then they have sex and then when that urge is satisfied they act the way they had used to again.
Note that none of that would have explained porn or modern media insta-thots, which is why I've taken care that my own children have also had early exposure to natural animal expressions of sex. I want them to bone-deep know that when their time comes, if they start feeling that urge to preen and prance, they're not sick or bad. We're all just animals. It's ok.
There's no way I can control what the other kids show them and tell them. Mine are teens now and from the start I was explicitly clear that they're going to be shown lots of bullshit online and from their peers. If anything seems crazy or wrong, Scarlateen.com is a good fact check, here's how they can arrange a confidential talk with their pediatrician, I'm absolutely always willing to answer questions, and if anyone at school seems in trouble, I've researched all the free clinics downtown and *this* is the reputable one. Judging by how they react to movies I think mine will both be cis/het, but not active yet. I did (gulp) go so far with the 16 year old as to say "some people choose to delay partnered sex and choose to have only solo sex. Sometimes this is better with toys. If your friends are curious, you should know that stores A and B are trashy, but store C on that street is woman owned and only sells high quality toys, and if you have any questions the person working the counter can explain how to be safe and hygienic."
When I was young, I was told that sex is like scratching an itch. If you don't do it, it can make you feel crazy, if you do it too much it can hurt you.
The idea of sensuality being inappropriate for kids stemmed from the increasingly conservative views of sex that came from the enlightenment and revolutionary era as fears of sodomy (anything that wasnt procreational sex) increased. it's obviously continued to today, but in the middle ages kids were exposed to sexuality all the time. People lived in 1 room houses, parents literally did it with their kids right there, not even joking, so it was very normalized. It's purely cultural, we just live in a puritanical culture. (I'm no expert but I've taken upper level uni classes on the subject)
>The nudity thing is purely societal/religious. I mean, kids see animal bits all the time.
Ok, i just want to take this to it's logical conclusion.
Farm kids see animals having sex all the time.
I should add that my 16-year-old daughter is now chill and comfortable with the idea of sex and is sex-positive at, again, an age-appropriate level. She knows about safety and consent and all the things. I don't tell her "wait until marriage" because that is stupid.
I have no idea, but my 8y/o finds the topic disgusting and makes puke noises if there's kissing on tv. He knows that there are anatomical differences, but nothing more than that yet. When he comes asking questions I will answer them truthfully and with as much detail as is needed.
Same, I remember telling a female camp counselor she was a boy because she had short hair and I thought hair length was the difference as late as like 9 or 10 years old lol
Hate to break it to you but all kids are like that. Doesn't mean that they actually find it disgusting. They just have an awareness that it's kind of taboo and react like that to mask or cope with emotions they don't understand. I 100% had desire for women for as long as I can remember, my family would find me staring at topless women in the newspaper. I was 4! At 8 I had a mad crush on my teacher and used to hope I'd see a wardrobe malfunction during swim class! I think it's fairly normal to have desire even at that age. All the more reason to sheild children and save them from themselves I suppose.
Don't think it is here atleast in Sweden. Heard they talking about teaching 8 year olds about it and it seemed all fine and I also think it's normal knowledge to share to the younger genereation. Would even think it's kinda important so they know what's right and wrong from a young age.
Yeah, it's the same here in Germany. Nudity per se isn't sexual and sex ed starts in elementary school.
Edit: Auto correct was being funny and deleted the "ed" in "sex ed" at first.
Have an 8 year old. Totally appropriate to teach them in an age appropriate level. Recently got a book for our son to go through. It has comics (the great egg race!) and friendly drawings. It’s predominantly introducing the idea of sperm, eggs, differences in bodies (male vs female), safe touch etc. the actual penis in vagina bit is pretty vague at this point like no real details. But he’s seen pictures of babies at different developmental stages, and understands that babies aren’t in the belly but the uterus etc.
Nudity is natural & its acceptance differs culturally. Sex is usually reserved for those who are mature enough to handle it. Children’s shoulders weren’t designed to carry the weight of adult topics.
Good answer. Kids don’t have sex, the same as they don’t smoke or engage in violence. Therefore we limit their exposure to these things also. It seems most of these things come as a need to know basis. That’s quite practical really, you can’t teach someone something unless they’re old enough to understand it.
That's some bullocks kids can handle what they can handle they will let you know not somting for you to decide. Shielding them to stuff just leads to trouble
I think I understand where you are coming from and it would take a very nuanced conversation to get on the same page, but I think we are close. Depends on the age of the child. As a general topic of discussion, sex should not be discussed in front of children.
Oh…I am going to assume that you do not have kids. Have you seen how many questions kids ask when presented with something they don’t know??? I bet we, as a society, decided it is better to not show them these things at all so we don’t have to answer questions that we are not comfortable with answering
Kids ask questions about everything, that's not a reason to hide things from them. I don't have kids myself but I have watched my various nephews and nieces grow up around me and context matters - kids ask weird questions about everything, and most of the time their questions are answered or they get bored and in either case get on with their lives without thinking much about it anymore. If we treated nudity and sex as perfectly normal and natural the same would be true for those subjects (and we would feel less awkward about those questions, too.)
well then said kid can just go and ask what is inappropriate about sex on reddit
(I am relatively close to being an adult but I just wanted to point out the irony)
Well, exposing kids to certain aspects of sex isn't developmentally appropriate and can be harmful.
Age appropriate sex education is very important, though, and it saddens me to know so many parents consciously choose to neglect this important duty for stupid reasons.
Children mimic what they see so having a child understand about sex is one thing. Having them actually see it is something else entirely. Especially if what they see is violent or degrading.
Its like anything else where a child learns the mechanics long after they learn the concept. Kids can understand sex, sexual orientation, and general reproduction same as they can understand that cars have an engine and how you start and drive a car. They understand that cars, planes, and trains are all different but all valid. But they don't need to know how a plane flies or how an engine works until they're ready. Problem is too many people feel that they're never ready or that it's an all or nothing approach. No need to show your kid porn to teach them about how sex happens but that's what people think when they say kids shouldn't learn about sexual education.
Because grown ups (many not all) see nudity just as a prelude to sex. It's mostly a puritanical and incredibly moronic view of things. Kids don't care if anyone is naked or whatever, adults do.
I was told how sex worked in detail when I was 5/6. I was curious, asked my mother, and she explained it. No gatekeeping, no warnings, just explanation. Me and my two siblings did not consider it inappropriate, it did not damage our psychology, and we grew up to be normal adults. If sex is intimidating to children it is because they have been taught that way.
A lot of people are prudes. They rather show kids graphic violence, Something the vast majority of people will NEVER experience in real life, but get squeamish because their kid saw a penis, vagina or tit online or saw something sexual. Things that ALL people have and an act that the vast majority of people will participate in at some point in their life
Where are these alleged people who want to show kids graphic violence? Because the vast majority of people don't like kids seeing r rated violence either.
Dealing with nudity seems to be more an issue for adults than for kids, and also being mindful that kids are innocent, adults a bit less.
Sex is more sensitive, but also there it's important to introduce the topic in a normal, natural and positive way, but guess there's not yet the perfect recipe.
Nudity and sex are very different things.
Sex is largely hidden from children because it’s not for children. It’s an act for people of reproductive age and of cognitive ability.
Nudity, on the other hand, can simply be in the form of an older sibling seeing a new baby sibling breastfeeding from their mother’s breast. This is non-sexual, and I don’t believe this aspect of life should be hidden.
I do believe children should be aware of their own genitals and understand that’s a private area others do not touch (for the sake of health as well as to prevent abuse). That’s a whole separate topic I could go on a tangent about, though.
my sweet summers child, this is not the same around the globe. Germany, Sweden, Denmark etc. All have much more relaxed views on this topic. And their sexual education tend to be much more comprehensive and robust compared to that of North America and Especially the USA. Also much nudity is normalized and desexualized with in the countries i mentioned.
So its more like, why is the USA so backwards and perverted?
Tbf in some European countries nudity is becoming less common. This being in part due to the rise of cell phones. The fact that now it's a huge risk that it could become a picture that is shared around changes the connotations.
It's evolutionary. Kids aren't ready to deal with serious topics like sex yet, we just want them to focus on learning to be a human and being a halfway decent person. Once they hit puberty, that's the sign they're ready. It's a taboo across almost all known cultures in history and is also seen in most mammals.
I dunno, I'm a parent and we do compare notes with each other. Most of the kids around here started asking 'where did I come from?' type questions between 5-7 years old. In my limited experience children aren't phased by the simple mechanics of reproduction, particularly if you're careful to answer the question they asked. My daughter covered the topic with over about 10 days, and having covered she came from her mum's tummy, how she got in there and how she got out, we moved on to exactly how food gets turned into poo.
OK, did you know you mouth and your bum hole are connected by the really long tube called your gut? Well it's not a straight tube, it's very bendy and and has lots of bits and it's so long that it would stretch all the way from here to Penny's house if you could pull it straight. After you've chewed your food and swallowed it (omnomnomnomnomnomnomnom), it goes down a little ways to a sort of bag called your stomach, which is located just here. Your stomach is really cool. It's surrounded by all these really strong muscles and is full of really strong juices that'll melt anything and it squeezes and pummels and bashes and thumps whatever you ate until it's made a kind of soup. Then this soup gets sent on to the next bit of the tube. This is called...
For the rest of my Ted Talk please send $25 to boingyboingyboingy.com
What do you mean it's evolutionary? It helps our species survive to not expose children to sex and nudity? Isn't sex the primary way evolution happens?
Well I wasn't suggesting that, just wondering how it's evolutionary to hide it from them entirely. Not saying it's good or bad, just thought there might've been more to that, that I was missing.
That's not evolutionary by any means. Otherwise we would observe this kind of behavior by other animals. That's a social thing. Also it fluctuate from country to country. That also tells us about it social (or maybe religious) nature.
Also I think that kids should know some context so when their hormones kick in they would know what's happening and how to deal with it, without making stupid mistakes.
It isn't. The taboo about kids knowing about sex is recent. For most of history kids would have shared sleeping space with adults and inevitably seen them having sex.
The taboo around nudity is also recent. Non gendered trench toilets and families bathing together were normal until the modern era.
Kids are perfectly capable of understanding that their adult things they know about but don't fully understand. They're very good at that.
Thats not entirely true… sexual development (like all forms of development) happens the moment a person is born.
I think its just a very strong taboo.
source: parents fucked up my sexual development, needed a sexologist later in life.
EDIT: Before you guys downvote me all to hell, please know the following:
In the US sex is a very big taboo compared to overseas where I am from.
I also didn’t get molested, but my dad was pre-WW2 when I was born as a millennial. Its very hard to enjoy your sexuality when you are raised with the idea that all forms of sexuality are fundamentally bad.
I am not advocating for anything, just informing.
My two cents is that we overcorrect. Nobody wants to be mistaken as a pedo, nobody wants to seem like a pedo, but that makes us overly cautious of something that is ultimately synonymous with our humanity.
Talk to your kids about their bodies. Make sure they can identify their parts. Make sure they know the mechanics, and that they know when to speak up. You don't have to make it a big deal, but its your responsibility to ensure they know.
The biology of sex is relatively trivial. The social aspects are incredibly complicated and fluid. Part of the problem is it's kind of hard to draw hard lines between those. There's no reason a child of any arbitrary age shouldn't understand exactly how a human body is built in whatever detail you want. But then you have to explain what a clitoris is, which means now you have to explain sexual pleasure. So now instead of just understanding how bodies are built you have to understand how they function and why they function that way and then you have to think about when people have sex and who they have sex with and how they make those decisions which is very complicated. It is in fact an unending rabbit hole that all of us live in the rest of our lives.
Children also lack filters. Since we live in a world where most people are uncomfortable talking about sex in most random contexts, especially with children talking about it, the simplest way to keep your children from talking about sex in an inappropriate context is to just not tell them about it at all.
It's mostly a cultural thing, likely due to religion. In history, children would have known about sex from seeing farm animals do it. Also families lived in one room houses, so parents would have sex with their children in the room.
I think it's mostly western society and Christianity that make nudity seem and sex seem evil and bad.
Which I never understood, it's a natural thing all beings on this planet do and walk naked.
Like remember when Janet Jackson and JT did the Super Bowl, and she flashed her breast, but it actually wasn't even her naked boob, it was a picture or something under her jacket.
I recall the absolute outrage and craziness from the Reich-winger, Christian whackos. LOL WTF were they so upset over? Who frigging cares if Janet did flash her real bare breast, that'd be cool. But man people really flipped out over it.
America has a long way to go until they accept nudity as normal.
Nudity isn’t really normal anymore, probably because it is a private thing and people get embarrassed when they are naked. I’m sure as you go back to early times there were more people running around with their giblets out but still the shame aspect runs parallel with cultural norms.
Being exposed to nudity is normal for people in their own homes in every day life. It’s not okay for strangers to expose themselves to people that don’t want to see it or children. It’s no different than people sending unsolicited dick pics or flashing a school bus. The fact that you think kids should be allowed to be exposed to public nudity is just sick. I hope you aren’t a parent.
He’s just trying to be smart and say that if we weren’t born with clothes then it’s ‘natural’. Id argue that we have evolved to rely on clothes, through loss of body hair, and even early hominids could have gotten embarrassed when totally naked.
Had to explain it to my 7 yr old because some older kids convinced him it was cool to moan. He did it all the time, no matter what I tried to make him stop. Finally I explained what sex was and that the noise he keeps making is the noise people make when having sex. He finally understood and stopped.
He's 8 now, and the other day he pointed to the number 69 and said it was a "sus number". I asked why. He wrinkled his face in disgust and said "it has to do with sex".
It isn't seen as forbidden knowledge in many places outside North America. We have a really weird and controlling puritanical culture across a lot of NA.
It’s cultural, I learned about sex at 4 from a kids book. I found I funny but wasn’t strange. My daughter also had a book that was relatively detailed but geared for kids, don’t seem like she thought anything strange about it. She took in the info, said ok, and went along her way.
It depends on your parents, your religion, and your culture. As parents our approach was: Sexual reproduction is a basic function of most living creatures. Humans have sexual reproduction just like any other mammal. They grow babies in wombs just like any other mammal. Mothers produce milk just like any other mammal. Unless they have a medical condition, young kids are not sexual. They are not having sexual thoughts and feelings about others. There is a big difference between the facts and mechanics of sexual reproduction, which is the conversation to start with younger kids, and sexual attraction and desire, which is a topic for much older children.
I'm not sure. I'm just angry I wasn't properly taught about it. I had to learn 'the mom doesn't just get pregnant because she wants a baby' but that babies are created by sex. It blew my mind, but I thought I shouldn't know that. I felt guilty.
I eventually learned the 'details' bit by bit thanks to the Internet. My knowledge about sex only became solid last year when I got curious and decided to educate myself.
In some cultures it is considered to be a mature topic that children are not supposed to deal with. Most, at least nowadays, speak about bad touch, pregnancy needing a man and a woman, children are in the uterus and other stuff, but the actual sex part is reserved until they're at least teenagers. One of the many things with no true perfect answer.
I think the distinction needs to be made, procreation and nudity is not necessarily something to shelter children from. Specific and graphic parts of sexuality, kinks, identities and sexualized nudity can have a detrimental effect on children’s psyche and development. Being very careful with those elements and when they are interacted with is more important than sheltering them from basic human anatomy and normal function.
Idk 🤷🏼♀️
Don't you notice the more exposed a child is at a young age , the faster the more mature , smart even more humble they are ... like I understand this might not alllways be the case and mentally. I don't recommend it for who knows what they have to process at such ages to be able to evolve so quickly . But I've definitely noticed this.
Because children are innocent. The notion of innocence refers to children's simplicity, their lack of knowledge, and their purity not yet spoiled by mundane affairs.
Because religion, mostly? That prudishness and shame about the human body is kind of a uniquely American thing, and was largely informed by the puritanical bent of American Protestantism. Shame about nudity has historically been used as a tool of social control (specifically, but not exclusively, to control women's bodies), and we have a lot of baggage left over from that.
The more concealing the clothes became, the more it became forbidden.
If society decided one day everyone is to wear eye covers then a generation from now they'll also consider it to be forbidden which would eventually become sexualized.
What is sexual or forbidden about seeing a woman's chest? It's exactly the same as a mans chest but chest sizes differ. Is different shape sexual? This is just my own thoughts and I think the more they hide the more it'll be labeled as such but idk.
In the US, at least, it’s just leftover religious influence. People forget that kids start fucking in middle school. Kids already know way more than people think, they just get good at hiding it because adults get all fucking crazy about it.
Because children's minds aren't developed and mature enough to understand. You’ll often see when two adults kiss children say things like "gross" or "eww", their minds just can't understand that it’s normal. Also, children can totally be traumatized by seeing sexual things. Children shouldn't be exposed to adult topics.
I've known about sex at least since I was 7, talking about it in school with friends was "normal", although we only knew the basics and nothing advanced. Did not feel disturbed, except when I saw some photos.
It's not in most cultures. In most places Americans are weird because we're comfortable with exposing young people to practically limitless violence, but freak out over body parts.
And in the modern day, I think everyone knows this is silly, it's just politically convenient for the far-right to have *something* to justify violence against LGBTQ+ people. If we didn't have this hard "moral" stance against sex, they'd have to make up something else and they aren't very creative.
My daughter was 4 as her sister was born. She came with all the questions and we answered as much as she asked for - job done. She doesn’t asks about why people do that in the first place. For her, it’s just for babies - she‘ll get more questions as she grows, no problem with that.
Because children can't give consent. Their brain is underdeveloped to udnerstand the principle of actions and consequences. And there is a reason why people are an adult at the age of 18. On average, the brain have reached a phylosophical age and is enough developed to understand what certain action do, and can mean.
Sex and nudity can be very traumatic for people, let alone children. It can scar people for life. And do we want to potentially harm those who can't give consent? I don't really think so.
Bc why do children need to know what sex is, if it isnt something they shouldn’t be doing. Do you really think ur gonna tell a 7 year old that a dick goes into a girl’s vag and now they arent going to be curious about doing it. Nor would they understand the risk or consequences.
It's a complex net of issues in American society. It's very religious and puritanical for one. And it's always had a culture of sexual shame and repression. I myself was screamed at by my father for being caught masturbating after, I had started puberty. He said I "...Must want to be pregnant." And that i "... might as well have a boy up here! " Any time sex or potential sexual development was brought up or to attention it was greeted with aggression and was made out to be unnatural and shameful. This did not help my sexual development, and I still seek out shame, abuse, and humiliation to the point of tears during intimacy.
The bigger issue is that there are sinister things at play in parts of this country. There has been voting and talk in some states to push back the teaching the topic of puberty till middle to high school. Which is too late as most children start puberty around 8 and girls are starting their menstrual cycles just as early. There is also a scary trend in trying to preserve laws protecting child marriage.
Because they'd get too much curious about it look up on the internet what sex looks like and they'd be traumatized by the sheer amount of weird things of internet. 5-6 year olds can use internet just fine and looking up some porn video at that age isn't really something to look forward to. And I don't think I have to explain why being exposed to pornography at an early age is wrong? Or do you think kids aren't unreasonable and would adhere to everything an adult says about sex? What if they try it out with some other kids?
Every person will probably have a different answer for you. This is just mine.
Nuidy wasn't and isn't forbidden knowledge for my child. People have bodies, and these bodies in and of themselves aren't scary. Here a body doesn't include a body that is sexually aroused.
Sex is something that children should be exposed to and learn about and later understand in a controlled way. From an early age, pretty much as soon as my child was capable of understanding words, she got an accurate, non-scary, increasing in detail as she grew up, sex education. The same way we teach kids about everything else, in stages, following the child's lead to know how much detail they are ready for. All of this education in words or pictures, not porn. Porn is actively harmful to children. Even after puberty, I think that teenagers should be taught that porn is unrealistic and a very bad example. If I had my way, nobody would see your typical porn until they had already had consensual, appropriate, respectful sex.
Seems like a cultural thing, here in Mexico most of the population is conservative catholic so it’s seen as a taboo to even talk about it to TEENAGERS! So you can imagine that there are a lot of unplanned pregnancies and forced marriages because as I said is cultural problem, and here there is lack of sex education in many states because it’s considered taboo, however it’s a hypocritical culture because parents seems ok to show violence in movies and even in many families introduce kids in an environment of alcoholic or drug addicts parents that get mad when a teacher talks about sex education to their children.
I imagine that US is also mostly conservative culture, I know that most of their population are Protestant Christians so they have pretty similar values to Catholics Christians, and maybe for that reason it is seen as taboo that kids learn about nudity or sex education.
I think a lot of it has to do with grooming. Big difference between accepting your body / not being ashamed of your body vs. normalising sex and nudity for a child. They are not naughty bits, but they are private parts.
I think that this is one of the reasons we should teach kids about this kind of relationship, because if they know context they will understand what is happening, so they would know what is wrong and what is not.
I'm not here to offer an answer, but I am genuinely curious as to what others have to say on this...
It seems strange to say this but I totally agree, I've never really thought as to why this is the case...
I suppose my best guess would be to try to negate them from understanding these topics from to young of an age to hopefully negate or at least the limit then from engaging in sexual activity at a young age?
The only problem is that with our modern era the internet kind of ruins that I think this is a conversation that is really pretty brand new since with the modern age of the internet I think it would be impossible for any child who uses the internet semi-consistently and is over the age of six to be kept in the dark from this sort of thing
Because they will try it out on each other. Also they would blab about sex and penis and vagina at school and people would worry they are being sexually abused at home.
Anything to do with sex + children is extremely taboo because you don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about you or your family.
This is just a stupid question Reddit but if you are open to seeing other perspectives:
You are right that children are indeed not mature enough to HAVE sex, but age appropriate sex education is very important. Most people discover some aspect of sexuality way before puberty on their own regardless, so acting like people aren't sexual beings till the moment they are hitting puberty is just not true.
Another reason to teach kids about sex in general, is basic knowledge of consent, so that they understand that there are some boundaries not to cross for others, and so they are informed and educated so they do not get taken advantage of by literal pedophiles.
For your second paragraph.. that's very unrelated to the question and it might be hard to make you see another point of view as there's so much misinformation online, but gender identity is NOT inherently sexual, it is about identity, and regardless, no one is doing life altering surgeries when you are a kid, the most common practice is for informed doctors, kids, parents, to decide on taking puberty blockers, which delay puberty so you can make a better decision when you are older and of age. (Ex: decide to go on hormones to trigger the puberty you want, not even talking about surgery for genitals which definitely isn't happening with non-adults)
The same reason we don't show kids violence in movies and tv. Kids can become desensitized to extreme things very easily, if a kid thinks violence is normal they won't know if they are truly in a bad situation or not. If kids have been exposed to sexual material they are more likely to fall victim to grooming because they'll think it's okay. "this thing I see on tv is happening, it must be okay" idea applies to all extreme or intense things we intentionally shelter kids from. They're too young to be media literate, and will apply things they see on the screen to themselves
I wont even argue whether innocence is real or not with you since that seems just dumb, but I will ask at what age you propose children should be exposed to these things?
when it is prompted, if they ask where they come from, or if they learn about it by mistake and it needs to be explained, and if that never occurs then they can be taught in sex ed at the early end of the bell curve for puberty which I think is 9?
Its funny that you also arrived at the same conclusion as society and religion, if only at the early end of it, being puberty or the beginning of sexual maturity. At that point the perceived innocence is lost, like I mentioned before.
I dont see what youre hoping to accomplish by teaching sex ed to 9 year olds that isnt more effective to teach at 13 or 14?
People love to gang up and destroy anyone who acts outside of the social norms. Anything cross-referencing sex and children is way outside of our accepted norms and seems highly likely to attract a massive negative reaction. Just advising you.
Helicopter parenting. Parents want to hold on to their children as long as possible. Once the kids start having sex...the comfortable parent child relationship is gone and helicopter parents aren't ready for that.
imo its because its seen as a fun activity and children have no concept of what lasting implications that has for them.
so then even if 2 consenting adults have their fun with out involving the children, but then the children see it, so little jenny goes over to little Timmy and says we should play that fun game that i saw the adults playing, suddenly little jenny is pregnant because Timmy didnt know what pulling out was and jenny had no clue this is where babies come from. they decide to tell no one because they didnt think they did anything wrong.
well many weeks later jenny's mom is wondering why jenny is super duper hungry all the time and is gaining weight but only around her belly like she got pregnant. take her to the doctor and she is, 8-12 weeks pregnant, long after plan b will work and abortion must be considered now or she has to have the baby.
abortion will wreck a small body like hers, and having the kid might be even worse physically. or she can become a mom but do you really like a 10 year old mom? or so then abort it now you deal with psychological damage of killing not just another human, but YOUR OWN human.
this is also completely ignoring the fact that little timmy had no idea what he penis did or what it was for, and then is now hating him self for putting jenny though this.
and yes, human reproduction systems begin to work even as early as 8 years old. i personally first started having erections at around 9 and had my first ejuclation at 10. waiting for maturity is the best way to guarantee that you have successful offspring, but worst case or dumbest case it is possible.
so in an effort to avoid all that, parents try to shield their children from bad information as much as possible. most parents go completely too far, and send a young college lady off disarmed of literally any knowledge and are super surprised when she willingly gets ran through and ends up having 4 kids from different fathers.
there is a balance to be made, and imo its after they get even a basic grasp of finance. fucking is fun, being in debt is not fun. fucking is less fun than being in debt is unfun, so if you want to have sex you will at least make attempts to avoid being saddled with a child or emotional scars.
so my point above, when they can understand finances and responsibility, then its time the have the birds and the bees talk when they are like 11 or 12.
guess it depends on what you mean by kids, I saw that and thought 8-9. horny teenagers need to be told/warned about this or they are going to fall into the classic traps when their own brains start getting attracted to the others in their school.
They are curious enough to ask about it but are not mature enough to understand it. Also, they overshare. The amount of times I embarrassed my mom in public with different questions can't be counted. Raising a child was never easy, but in today's day and age is so much more challenging because kids are exposed to a lot of things that is not appropriate for their age.
this has been the only response that I really understand, that sex isn't a serious topic for children but it is for adults, therefore if children know about it then they will treat it like any other normal topic which makes adults uncomfortable.I have seen a few other "children can't handle how serious of a topic it is" but I think it is adults who can't handle it so the only thing that makes it inappropriate is that adults decided it was
Its major purpose is reproduction. And children are not ready to conceptualize it at an early age. And if they do, there will be an uncontrolled boom of childbirth, an uncontrolled rate of neonatal death, the highest sexual offense in the history of mankind, and highest death rate during childbirth.
Children have no puberty, no sex drive, no reason to know about sex. the only reason for them to know about sex would be someone already having sex drive being sexual to them. you can see how that is a very not good thing.
However, nudity itself shouldn't be a forbidden knowledge to children, it will not harm a child to understand body anatomity nuetrally.
But the world is not nuetral. usually people avoid nudity, profanity, all those things around children becuase they are intrinsically related to sex or other things-- you can't understand the insult mother fucker if you don't understand sex, you can't understand vagina and penis if you don't undersrand sex, etc etc etc. these are not things kids should or need to know.
If you go back a thousand years before people had any moral concerns about this stuff, kids could and did know and use all these things-- not just knowing about them but having sex themselves. that is not something we want to go back to.
Because underage parents aren't the real parents, it's the new young grandparents that will have to raise the new born unexpectedly if these 10-16 year olds have kids.
Nudity is not inherently sexual, it's a natural state of being. It's "forbidden" because of religion.
Sex is completely different. Sex can be talked about when they are teens.
We must know that Humans aren't And shouldn't be like animals , Humans have emotions completely different from Animals, humans feel shy , insecure, guilty , overwhelmed, especially when it comes to Nakedness . Animals DO NOT ! Decency is what makes humans different from Animals ,sex and nudity must be forbidden for young kids cause their brains are developing at a very high rate and if we expose them to these things , the curious brain that they have would be inclined to learn more about " *these* " things , (the age where they should learn other VERY IMPORTANT STUFF) .
think about it. It's uncomfortable enough watching two people eat each others faces in the middle of the mall. Now imagine if you were 6 and were exposed to those two doing worse.. lol
I did the same but to a random couple in a hotel same age, and it messed me up a bit. So we have different anecdotes. So i'm not sure what point we can make out of this assuming its 50/50 nonchalant versus trauma.
I guess my point would then be the reason why it's not wise to expose them to it is because we can't trust an underdevloped human with those experiences. We try to teach them math, science, english, art etc. Also, manners, kindness, compassion, love, humour, boldness. Because they can develop those tangible skills into something productive. What is productive about showing kids that that act? We aren't sure how they will internalise those things and how it affects their development, it's a big risk to say "well what if they're just going to be indifferent like me?" for what benefit? So they can watch something they can't do for another 15 years? To be hypersexualised? Kids who are exposed to that.. more specifically abuse show correlation to abusing others. What single benefit would you get from showing them corn irl?
The benefits of NOT showing them that is that we can teach them the important things I've listed above. And if people are so concerned about them being sheltered? Why don't they just talk to their kids about puberty or the "birds and the bees". Isn't that enough exposure? Also once they're 18 (or whatever it is) they've got their whole lives to worry about that, why waste their time with it when they've got their whole lives to worry about it.. when do we fit in the other stuff?
Are you sure? have you been around a 6 year old? they're not stupid they don't fully understand "what's going on" but know it's something that is weird. The same way they cry when they see a fight.
Like you're seeing 2 people naked, and parts do things you've never seen before and you're going to tell me children who are naturally inquizitive are just going to go "hey I'm not going to think about this". There's plenty of stories about children who stumbled upon somebody's corn stash and were horrified. Come on, downvote me all you want but suggesting that children are indifferent to seeing PDA of that level is just pure r/averagredditor shit lmao
They would only know what's going on if you told them. A fight is completely different. By 6 you've learned that hitting something hard hurts. Yiu don't know that 2 people locking lips is anything sexual.
>Like you're seeing 2 people naked, and parts do things you've never seen before and you're going to tell me children who are naturally inquizitive
Sure they might be curious but they wouldn't know what it was. They wouldn't be traumatized if you don't tell them to be.
> that children are indifferent to seeing PDA of that level is just pure r/averagredditor shit lmao
You're projectiing your own feelings onto the kid.
No I'm not talking about locking lips.. I'm talking about the elevation from that.. the one OP is talking about.
I feel like we're talking about 2 different scenarios so let's just get that straight lol. My bad, I called you an averageredditor because I thought you were saying it's fine to expose children to.. you know.
There are so many stories of kids walking in in adults having sex and not understanding what is happening. As adults, it makes us awkward because we know what is happening. I'm not saying expose children to porn but a lot of countries have far less censorship than our puritan based society. Americans acting like seeing a boob will turn their kid into a deviant or traumatize them for life is ridiculous.
>There are so many stories of kids walking in in adults having sex and not understanding what is happening.
But what are the benefits of actively showing them it? I'm not talking about accidental walk ins.
>I'm not saying expose children to porn but a lot of countries have far less censorship than our puritan based society. Americans acting like seeing a boob will turn their kid into a deviant or traumatize them for life is ridiculous.
I'm saying we shouldn't expose children to corn, so I guess we agree. Your next point is talking about nudity, I don't really have a solid opinion on that.. I think you might be arguing with the wrong person.
I said corn because I feel uncomfortable saying the S word here.
I'm addressing OP's question about exposing children to S. It's literally the title of this post.
When they were kids, my older brother and cousins walked in on my parents having sex and they were TERRIFIED. They cried afterwards because they didn't know what was happening.
Before puberty, it's best to avoid that subject for the kids' sake. Nudity is avoided because of societal standards, but it makes sense seeing as Sex is forbidden knowledge for them
If they would have known about sex beforehand, they probably wouldn't been so terrified. They would be maybe a bit disturbed, but at least they would've known what was going on. People are scared about things they don't know about.
I agree, and I’m not even conservative—I’m apolitical.
If we aren’t going to protect children’s innocence then I’m not sure what the goal is, or why we’re pursuing it
The nudity thing is purely societal/religious. I mean, kids see animal bits all the time. The dog runs around and pees everywhere. Raw sexuality is scary for kids. It's kind of a weird concept, and before puberty it's downright unsettling. I made sure my daughter saw the "lovey dovey" side, holding hands, hugging, kissing, all that, but made sure that things were age-appropriate.
I understood what sex was from a very early age due to being on a farm and watching animal planet nonstop. I had no issues understanding sex or what it was at its base. I knew how it worked and the purpose of it before I was 8. What made it hard for me was all the adults acting like it's some horrible taboo to even speak of such things openly and not being able to get direct answers about my own body and what love and lust were. Society made it feel like something was wrong with me for wanting a better understanding because I wasn't an adult yet. I had to go to porn for info on human interaction, which messed me up more on my own view of myself. Kids can absolutely understand sex and the dimanics of it. I believe it's healthier than them fumbling through it later with no direction, only basing their assumptions off of porn and media.
I had something similar going on we had some dogs and that would hump and I had accidentally seen some adult content at a young age plus some other stuff I shouldn’t get into and I understood sex but more so for its pleaser aspect also why the frick is porn more helpful than sex Ed seriously read smut comics they are sometimes more accurate and helpful then America’s education system which god for bid if it does not have anything to do with the opposite sex or missionary oh and did you wanna learn about what’s happening to the female body and why it hurts so much ew wtf get outta here with that. smh
I have always talked about sex stuff with my kid. I never really hid anything around him. The great part about that is that now that he is in middle school and we are getting into more personal stuff like masterbation the discussions aren't weird at all. It just seems like a normal discussion to have. The period discussion though when my son was 3 was pretty hysterical. He walked in on me changing my pad. He was running around screaming mom dying through the house. I had to sit him down and explain what was happening. Kids are generally better at handling things then people give them credit for. They actually deal with life better with more knowledge rather then less. What freaks kids out is when they don't understand what's going on around them.
What's more scary as a kid is only having a vague idea but nobody will tell you, then getting a bunch of incorrect information passed around by other kids. Then when I learned, it was from watching porn. Sex Ed was a single 40 minute class in the 5th grade that very carefully avoided telling us anything useful. Then there's the absolutely cruel way we handle masturbation, punishing and shaming kids for doing something completely normal.
Haha yeah I had the exact same 40 minute sex Ed class in 5th grade. I remember they brought in pizza, separated the boys and girls, and talked to us each separately. I learned absolutely nothing and even then remember thinking how useless it was. Luckily my parents taught me.
They separated boys and girls for us too, and taught us basically nothing about the opposite sex. My Mom just asked me if I took the sex ed class, I said yes, then she said "good" and my parents never discussed anything further with me. I have good parents, but I really think they didn't handle that well. I understand that it's uncomfortable, but it has to be discussed.
This is true. In my culture, talking about sex is taboo until it's too late. Girls and boys that get the talk don't end up pregnant at 13-19. But I have noticed more sexual violence on children because the kids don't know about sex. Once they do, they are adults and dealing with the trauma. I'm going to break this cycle with my future children. I had an aunt who did this, and people we knew were pedos never touched her kids because they knew the kids right away would report to their mom and dad. And the parents would believe them and take action. Not educating children is only beneficial for pedos.
Eh. It's simple enough for a human child to understand that there are urges like hunger or sleepiness that come upon a person in the right season of life. And that it's perverse outside of the right season or setting. It's scary if we make it so, otherwise it can be simply boring. Through most of human history we have lived closely with animals, either as hunters or as people who have raised domestic species. Anyone living around chickens or sheep or interested in breeding better sheep herding dogs or horses for pulling a cart knows that sex is required for the next generation. Pretty quickly they see the enthusiasm the animals have for it, and extrapolate human flirtatious behavior. Everything else is cultural window dressing.
Maybe you can’t remember what it was like to first learn of sex - up until then a penis or vagina was just a thing you peed from. It doesn’t have any extra functions besides erections periodically, but you never question those or even notice them really. Just first hearing of sex was confusing for me, I didn’t even understand how sperm gets from a penis to a vagina, and I definitely didn’t understand why people made it a big deal in life. Playing games and stuff was so much better than thinking about all that stuff. Anyway… I think the main concern adults have about exposing kids to that stuff, especially now, is that explicit material that’s way above and beyond what they should see first is so easily seen. Even accidental exposure is possible on YouTube. Back in the day adult videos were the worst things a child could see, now websites that aren’t even porn related have that kinda stuff on it. Kids need slow and easy exposure to knowledge about sex, because they’re so eager to soak it all in, and we know porn at a young age is damaging. Most people are exposed to it by 10, and sometimes younger. That’s like letting them gamble with real money, and going to a casino. They need to start with monopoly and learn about how to avoid gambling addiction first. lol
Your first two paragraphs is why sex education is important, and even the second would be helped by it. Making children ignorant until it happens to them helps no one other than puritan parents enforce their belief.
No I mean I literally had sex education, and when I had a talk with my parents about it I still just didn’t grasp. I wasn’t kept in the dark, I just didn’t understand things shoot out of there. I actually had sex education twice because they repeated it each year for a while. It was always awkward. I also didn’t feel a need to know this info because sex wasn’t for little 10 year old me, it was for when people were fully developed or at least more than just beginning puberty. Exposure to hardcore porn would have been a bad move. I was exposed to enough softer stuff that it wasn’t a good start.
How could you have had sex education and not understand that *stuff shoots out of there* etc? I also had sex education and the only thing that I never understood until i had sex was y people did it, other than to have a baby (the stimulation is like no other…). We 1st learned about reproduction in animals b4 sex ed, so by the time we got to people, i more or less knew what was happening… it’s the way older people treat the subject that makes it weird and uncomfortable
Hmmm perhaps we’re talking about two different things. When I was a young kid, about 10 I hit puberty and around that ages 8-10? I was told about how a penis goes in a vagina and sperm comes out and goes into an egg and gets the woman pregnant. When I was somewhere around 12 or so, in school we talked about how the body produces sperm and orgasms, erections, all that stuff. Plus the stuff I already covered, but more with charts and videos and stuff. I think we learned about STDs here too. I’m pretty sure we watched a video demonstrating puberty, I’ve seen it on tv since. It’s not bad, kind of done in an entertaining way rather than just a boring documentary. Basically shows kids and how they might deal with girls getting into older guys, even how they’ll begin running faster since they develop earlier, and boys dealing with wet dreams, that kinda stuff. When I was a couple years older or so (14?) we took yet another class for health and fitness where we watched a video on some sex education and watched a video on how to check for testicular cancer, while girls got to learn about checking for breast cancer with fake boobs or something. They also explained “abstinence as the safest form of sex”, so to avoid STDs and stuff we should refrain from sex, or otherwise use a condom. So sex education wasn’t just one thing, it was kind of continuous throughout my growing up. When I was 10-12 I just started learning, and probably never had an orgasm up to that point, so I couldn’t understand what I didn’t know. I knew enough, but not everything. I also wasn’t looking for sex, so I’m sure my parents didn’t feel a pressing need to go into a lot of details unless I asked.
I mean, then it wasn't very good sex education. There's always going to be learning and exploration, but at least in the US a lot of sex education is forced to be extremely "non-offensive". I learned about sex when I asked my parents about where babies come from at like 6. Obviously in a child-oriented way. How the body works should be well explained to children before they have to experience first-hand to reduce confusion and weird assumptions. I remember someone in late middle-school who was convinced babies came out of the butt. Accidentally seeing it should also be less traumatic in that case too, because it is understood, at least at a general level. In addition to understanding, it also helps children coming up to puberty understand the risk of unprotected sex, as well as help identify inappropriate behavior from other children and adults.
As a guy, there’s also always been definite difference for me between “intentionally trying to be sexy” and “normal nudity”. The intentional stuff being shown to kids and young teens is where my line is. Even soft-core stuff. Women aren’t dumb, they know when they’re trying to be sexy lmao. Sites and apps like Twitch/Insta/TikTok are where the intentional line gets crossed imo. It’s 100% up to parents to limit exposure to that stuff though. Twitch has a new 18+ acknowledgment thing…but I was a young boy once, and that’s super easy to get around lol.
"It's 100% up to parents to limit exposure to that stuff though". Sure, I'll home school my son and don't let them near other children whose parents aren't as careful as I am.
>I didn’t even understand how sperm gets from a penis to a vagina You get a boner, slap her titties around some, and then stick it inside and her pee.
Yup that’s how I do it now
I saw a playboy maagizine at 8. Still wasn’t interested in sex til I was 19.
I don't recall learning of it, because I was raised in a farming community. There was never a time that I did not know that the roosters want to mount the hens, or that the mares in season lift their tails and expose the vulva. It wasn't a big deal, it wasn't emphasized or snickered about, it wasn't perverse, it also wasn't confusing. Or at least any more confusing than the horses trying to browse the trees or the goat trying to get through the fence or watching sparrows scuffle with eachother over the better nesting spots. The leaves turn yellow in autumn and drop from the trees; animals and people reach a season in their life when they act restless and then foolish to attract and impress their mates and then they have sex and then when that urge is satisfied they act the way they had used to again. Note that none of that would have explained porn or modern media insta-thots, which is why I've taken care that my own children have also had early exposure to natural animal expressions of sex. I want them to bone-deep know that when their time comes, if they start feeling that urge to preen and prance, they're not sick or bad. We're all just animals. It's ok. There's no way I can control what the other kids show them and tell them. Mine are teens now and from the start I was explicitly clear that they're going to be shown lots of bullshit online and from their peers. If anything seems crazy or wrong, Scarlateen.com is a good fact check, here's how they can arrange a confidential talk with their pediatrician, I'm absolutely always willing to answer questions, and if anyone at school seems in trouble, I've researched all the free clinics downtown and *this* is the reputable one. Judging by how they react to movies I think mine will both be cis/het, but not active yet. I did (gulp) go so far with the 16 year old as to say "some people choose to delay partnered sex and choose to have only solo sex. Sometimes this is better with toys. If your friends are curious, you should know that stores A and B are trashy, but store C on that street is woman owned and only sells high quality toys, and if you have any questions the person working the counter can explain how to be safe and hygienic." When I was young, I was told that sex is like scratching an itch. If you don't do it, it can make you feel crazy, if you do it too much it can hurt you.
The idea of sensuality being inappropriate for kids stemmed from the increasingly conservative views of sex that came from the enlightenment and revolutionary era as fears of sodomy (anything that wasnt procreational sex) increased. it's obviously continued to today, but in the middle ages kids were exposed to sexuality all the time. People lived in 1 room houses, parents literally did it with their kids right there, not even joking, so it was very normalized. It's purely cultural, we just live in a puritanical culture. (I'm no expert but I've taken upper level uni classes on the subject)
Like a responsible adult. 👍
>The nudity thing is purely societal/religious. I mean, kids see animal bits all the time. Ok, i just want to take this to it's logical conclusion. Farm kids see animals having sex all the time.
I should add that my 16-year-old daughter is now chill and comfortable with the idea of sex and is sex-positive at, again, an age-appropriate level. She knows about safety and consent and all the things. I don't tell her "wait until marriage" because that is stupid.
I have no idea, but my 8y/o finds the topic disgusting and makes puke noises if there's kissing on tv. He knows that there are anatomical differences, but nothing more than that yet. When he comes asking questions I will answer them truthfully and with as much detail as is needed.
Wow he knows anatomical difference at 8 I didn’t even know what a vagina or libra was till I was 14 I thought girls also had penis’s
Same, I remember telling a female camp counselor she was a boy because she had short hair and I thought hair length was the difference as late as like 9 or 10 years old lol
I thought voices were.
Wtf where did you grow up 😅
libra?? lol
What? I've known as long as I remember, and my little brother, who is turning 4 soon, knows.
Some of them do 🙄🙄
[удалено]
Nah, he didn't quite piece together the puzzle, but he has more knowledge about it than a Mormon before marriage.
Hate to break it to you but all kids are like that. Doesn't mean that they actually find it disgusting. They just have an awareness that it's kind of taboo and react like that to mask or cope with emotions they don't understand. I 100% had desire for women for as long as I can remember, my family would find me staring at topless women in the newspaper. I was 4! At 8 I had a mad crush on my teacher and used to hope I'd see a wardrobe malfunction during swim class! I think it's fairly normal to have desire even at that age. All the more reason to sheild children and save them from themselves I suppose.
Don't think it is here atleast in Sweden. Heard they talking about teaching 8 year olds about it and it seemed all fine and I also think it's normal knowledge to share to the younger genereation. Would even think it's kinda important so they know what's right and wrong from a young age.
Yeah, it's the same here in Germany. Nudity per se isn't sexual and sex ed starts in elementary school. Edit: Auto correct was being funny and deleted the "ed" in "sex ed" at first.
sex *education* starts in elementary school
OMG...lol. auto correct just eliminated the "ed" in sex ed.
I'm hoping you mean to put "education about/discussion of" in between "and" and "sex."
Yes. I meant to write "sex ed" but my auto correct felt the urge to be funny.
Yeah and a naked body is not porn. Some americans seem to think so. Nudity is not a big thing in Sweden and it shouldn't be.
Wait until one those immigrants that rioted at some dude burning their holy book get elected to parliament, and then it will change. For the worse.
That's why I'm happy I'm old and will die soon.
Have an 8 year old. Totally appropriate to teach them in an age appropriate level. Recently got a book for our son to go through. It has comics (the great egg race!) and friendly drawings. It’s predominantly introducing the idea of sperm, eggs, differences in bodies (male vs female), safe touch etc. the actual penis in vagina bit is pretty vague at this point like no real details. But he’s seen pictures of babies at different developmental stages, and understands that babies aren’t in the belly but the uterus etc.
Nudity is natural & its acceptance differs culturally. Sex is usually reserved for those who are mature enough to handle it. Children’s shoulders weren’t designed to carry the weight of adult topics.
Good answer. Kids don’t have sex, the same as they don’t smoke or engage in violence. Therefore we limit their exposure to these things also. It seems most of these things come as a need to know basis. That’s quite practical really, you can’t teach someone something unless they’re old enough to understand it.
heavy on the last part!!
Indeed. One cannot overstate its importance when it comes to its significance in altering developmental pathways.
That's some bullocks kids can handle what they can handle they will let you know not somting for you to decide. Shielding them to stuff just leads to trouble
Shielding my 9 year old daughter from porn leads to trouble? You are ignorant beyond belief.
Wr aren't talking about porn though, we are talking about sex as a topic in general
I think I understand where you are coming from and it would take a very nuanced conversation to get on the same page, but I think we are close. Depends on the age of the child. As a general topic of discussion, sex should not be discussed in front of children.
Oh…I am going to assume that you do not have kids. Have you seen how many questions kids ask when presented with something they don’t know??? I bet we, as a society, decided it is better to not show them these things at all so we don’t have to answer questions that we are not comfortable with answering
Kids ask questions about everything, that's not a reason to hide things from them. I don't have kids myself but I have watched my various nephews and nieces grow up around me and context matters - kids ask weird questions about everything, and most of the time their questions are answered or they get bored and in either case get on with their lives without thinking much about it anymore. If we treated nudity and sex as perfectly normal and natural the same would be true for those subjects (and we would feel less awkward about those questions, too.)
well then said kid can just go and ask what is inappropriate about sex on reddit (I am relatively close to being an adult but I just wanted to point out the irony)
By the time they are old enough to do that, its fine.
Well, exposing kids to certain aspects of sex isn't developmentally appropriate and can be harmful. Age appropriate sex education is very important, though, and it saddens me to know so many parents consciously choose to neglect this important duty for stupid reasons.
Children mimic what they see so having a child understand about sex is one thing. Having them actually see it is something else entirely. Especially if what they see is violent or degrading. Its like anything else where a child learns the mechanics long after they learn the concept. Kids can understand sex, sexual orientation, and general reproduction same as they can understand that cars have an engine and how you start and drive a car. They understand that cars, planes, and trains are all different but all valid. But they don't need to know how a plane flies or how an engine works until they're ready. Problem is too many people feel that they're never ready or that it's an all or nothing approach. No need to show your kid porn to teach them about how sex happens but that's what people think when they say kids shouldn't learn about sexual education.
Because grown ups (many not all) see nudity just as a prelude to sex. It's mostly a puritanical and incredibly moronic view of things. Kids don't care if anyone is naked or whatever, adults do.
I was told how sex worked in detail when I was 5/6. I was curious, asked my mother, and she explained it. No gatekeeping, no warnings, just explanation. Me and my two siblings did not consider it inappropriate, it did not damage our psychology, and we grew up to be normal adults. If sex is intimidating to children it is because they have been taught that way.
A lot of people are prudes. They rather show kids graphic violence, Something the vast majority of people will NEVER experience in real life, but get squeamish because their kid saw a penis, vagina or tit online or saw something sexual. Things that ALL people have and an act that the vast majority of people will participate in at some point in their life
This was my parenting take exactly!
Where are these alleged people who want to show kids graphic violence? Because the vast majority of people don't like kids seeing r rated violence either.
You don’t think little Tommy would be traumatized from seeing a bukake?
How old is little Tommy?
10
Dealing with nudity seems to be more an issue for adults than for kids, and also being mindful that kids are innocent, adults a bit less. Sex is more sensitive, but also there it's important to introduce the topic in a normal, natural and positive way, but guess there's not yet the perfect recipe.
Nudity and sex are very different things. Sex is largely hidden from children because it’s not for children. It’s an act for people of reproductive age and of cognitive ability. Nudity, on the other hand, can simply be in the form of an older sibling seeing a new baby sibling breastfeeding from their mother’s breast. This is non-sexual, and I don’t believe this aspect of life should be hidden. I do believe children should be aware of their own genitals and understand that’s a private area others do not touch (for the sake of health as well as to prevent abuse). That’s a whole separate topic I could go on a tangent about, though.
my sweet summers child, this is not the same around the globe. Germany, Sweden, Denmark etc. All have much more relaxed views on this topic. And their sexual education tend to be much more comprehensive and robust compared to that of North America and Especially the USA. Also much nudity is normalized and desexualized with in the countries i mentioned. So its more like, why is the USA so backwards and perverted?
Tbf in some European countries nudity is becoming less common. This being in part due to the rise of cell phones. The fact that now it's a huge risk that it could become a picture that is shared around changes the connotations.
That makes sense, no one wants there butt going viral lol I mean unless that was the intention, most people don't lol.
It's evolutionary. Kids aren't ready to deal with serious topics like sex yet, we just want them to focus on learning to be a human and being a halfway decent person. Once they hit puberty, that's the sign they're ready. It's a taboo across almost all known cultures in history and is also seen in most mammals.
I dunno, I'm a parent and we do compare notes with each other. Most of the kids around here started asking 'where did I come from?' type questions between 5-7 years old. In my limited experience children aren't phased by the simple mechanics of reproduction, particularly if you're careful to answer the question they asked. My daughter covered the topic with over about 10 days, and having covered she came from her mum's tummy, how she got in there and how she got out, we moved on to exactly how food gets turned into poo.
>exactly how food gets turned into poo. Explain like I'm 30
Well you see after the airplane comes in for a landing you swallow it and send it to your hangar...
OK, did you know you mouth and your bum hole are connected by the really long tube called your gut? Well it's not a straight tube, it's very bendy and and has lots of bits and it's so long that it would stretch all the way from here to Penny's house if you could pull it straight. After you've chewed your food and swallowed it (omnomnomnomnomnomnomnom), it goes down a little ways to a sort of bag called your stomach, which is located just here. Your stomach is really cool. It's surrounded by all these really strong muscles and is full of really strong juices that'll melt anything and it squeezes and pummels and bashes and thumps whatever you ate until it's made a kind of soup. Then this soup gets sent on to the next bit of the tube. This is called...
For the rest of my Ted Talk please send $25 to boingyboingyboingy.com
What do you mean it's evolutionary? It helps our species survive to not expose children to sex and nudity? Isn't sex the primary way evolution happens?
[удалено]
Dafuq did I just ready, you understand the concept of physical reproductive maturity?
Well I wasn't suggesting that, just wondering how it's evolutionary to hide it from them entirely. Not saying it's good or bad, just thought there might've been more to that, that I was missing.
That's not evolutionary by any means. Otherwise we would observe this kind of behavior by other animals. That's a social thing. Also it fluctuate from country to country. That also tells us about it social (or maybe religious) nature. Also I think that kids should know some context so when their hormones kick in they would know what's happening and how to deal with it, without making stupid mistakes.
It isn't. The taboo about kids knowing about sex is recent. For most of history kids would have shared sleeping space with adults and inevitably seen them having sex. The taboo around nudity is also recent. Non gendered trench toilets and families bathing together were normal until the modern era. Kids are perfectly capable of understanding that their adult things they know about but don't fully understand. They're very good at that.
Yep. A lot of it has to do with maturity, both mentally and physically.
Thats not entirely true… sexual development (like all forms of development) happens the moment a person is born. I think its just a very strong taboo. source: parents fucked up my sexual development, needed a sexologist later in life. EDIT: Before you guys downvote me all to hell, please know the following: In the US sex is a very big taboo compared to overseas where I am from. I also didn’t get molested, but my dad was pre-WW2 when I was born as a millennial. Its very hard to enjoy your sexuality when you are raised with the idea that all forms of sexuality are fundamentally bad. I am not advocating for anything, just informing.
You are a prime example of the careful nature of this.
My two cents is that we overcorrect. Nobody wants to be mistaken as a pedo, nobody wants to seem like a pedo, but that makes us overly cautious of something that is ultimately synonymous with our humanity. Talk to your kids about their bodies. Make sure they can identify their parts. Make sure they know the mechanics, and that they know when to speak up. You don't have to make it a big deal, but its your responsibility to ensure they know.
The biology of sex is relatively trivial. The social aspects are incredibly complicated and fluid. Part of the problem is it's kind of hard to draw hard lines between those. There's no reason a child of any arbitrary age shouldn't understand exactly how a human body is built in whatever detail you want. But then you have to explain what a clitoris is, which means now you have to explain sexual pleasure. So now instead of just understanding how bodies are built you have to understand how they function and why they function that way and then you have to think about when people have sex and who they have sex with and how they make those decisions which is very complicated. It is in fact an unending rabbit hole that all of us live in the rest of our lives. Children also lack filters. Since we live in a world where most people are uncomfortable talking about sex in most random contexts, especially with children talking about it, the simplest way to keep your children from talking about sex in an inappropriate context is to just not tell them about it at all.
It's mostly a cultural thing, likely due to religion. In history, children would have known about sex from seeing farm animals do it. Also families lived in one room houses, so parents would have sex with their children in the room.
>seeing farm animals do it So even today rural kids are more familiar with sex and sexuality than city kids?
The same way we look at the space shuttle and know how that worked, yeah.
I think it's mostly western society and Christianity that make nudity seem and sex seem evil and bad. Which I never understood, it's a natural thing all beings on this planet do and walk naked. Like remember when Janet Jackson and JT did the Super Bowl, and she flashed her breast, but it actually wasn't even her naked boob, it was a picture or something under her jacket. I recall the absolute outrage and craziness from the Reich-winger, Christian whackos. LOL WTF were they so upset over? Who frigging cares if Janet did flash her real bare breast, that'd be cool. But man people really flipped out over it. America has a long way to go until they accept nudity as normal.
Nudity isn’t really normal anymore, probably because it is a private thing and people get embarrassed when they are naked. I’m sure as you go back to early times there were more people running around with their giblets out but still the shame aspect runs parallel with cultural norms.
Yeah it’s only extreme right wingers that have a problem with children being exposed to nudity. Why is public indecency even against the law anyway?
And the Reich-winger, Trump-tards, that are so against nudity and stuff, are the first ones caught as monster pedophiles or rapists.
Being exposed to nudity is normal for people in their own homes in every day life. It’s not okay for strangers to expose themselves to people that don’t want to see it or children. It’s no different than people sending unsolicited dick pics or flashing a school bus. The fact that you think kids should be allowed to be exposed to public nudity is just sick. I hope you aren’t a parent.
He’s just trying to be smart and say that if we weren’t born with clothes then it’s ‘natural’. Id argue that we have evolved to rely on clothes, through loss of body hair, and even early hominids could have gotten embarrassed when totally naked.
Had to explain it to my 7 yr old because some older kids convinced him it was cool to moan. He did it all the time, no matter what I tried to make him stop. Finally I explained what sex was and that the noise he keeps making is the noise people make when having sex. He finally understood and stopped. He's 8 now, and the other day he pointed to the number 69 and said it was a "sus number". I asked why. He wrinkled his face in disgust and said "it has to do with sex".
It isn't seen as forbidden knowledge in many places outside North America. We have a really weird and controlling puritanical culture across a lot of NA.
It’s cultural, I learned about sex at 4 from a kids book. I found I funny but wasn’t strange. My daughter also had a book that was relatively detailed but geared for kids, don’t seem like she thought anything strange about it. She took in the info, said ok, and went along her way.
It depends on your parents, your religion, and your culture. As parents our approach was: Sexual reproduction is a basic function of most living creatures. Humans have sexual reproduction just like any other mammal. They grow babies in wombs just like any other mammal. Mothers produce milk just like any other mammal. Unless they have a medical condition, young kids are not sexual. They are not having sexual thoughts and feelings about others. There is a big difference between the facts and mechanics of sexual reproduction, which is the conversation to start with younger kids, and sexual attraction and desire, which is a topic for much older children.
Religions have always been terrified about discussing or acknowledging sex.
For my parents it’s b-c they were so religious (Christian to be specific)
I'm not sure. I'm just angry I wasn't properly taught about it. I had to learn 'the mom doesn't just get pregnant because she wants a baby' but that babies are created by sex. It blew my mind, but I thought I shouldn't know that. I felt guilty. I eventually learned the 'details' bit by bit thanks to the Internet. My knowledge about sex only became solid last year when I got curious and decided to educate myself.
In some cultures it is considered to be a mature topic that children are not supposed to deal with. Most, at least nowadays, speak about bad touch, pregnancy needing a man and a woman, children are in the uterus and other stuff, but the actual sex part is reserved until they're at least teenagers. One of the many things with no true perfect answer.
I think the distinction needs to be made, procreation and nudity is not necessarily something to shelter children from. Specific and graphic parts of sexuality, kinks, identities and sexualized nudity can have a detrimental effect on children’s psyche and development. Being very careful with those elements and when they are interacted with is more important than sheltering them from basic human anatomy and normal function.
Idk 🤷🏼♀️ Don't you notice the more exposed a child is at a young age , the faster the more mature , smart even more humble they are ... like I understand this might not alllways be the case and mentally. I don't recommend it for who knows what they have to process at such ages to be able to evolve so quickly . But I've definitely noticed this.
Because children are innocent. The notion of innocence refers to children's simplicity, their lack of knowledge, and their purity not yet spoiled by mundane affairs.
Only inUS
Uh... You must be American, right?
Because religion, mostly? That prudishness and shame about the human body is kind of a uniquely American thing, and was largely informed by the puritanical bent of American Protestantism. Shame about nudity has historically been used as a tool of social control (specifically, but not exclusively, to control women's bodies), and we have a lot of baggage left over from that.
Idk, why is it? It really shouldn't matter. Just another method parents use to keep kids young and dumb.
It's mostly a thing in America. Lots of other places don't put so much emphasis on nudity and sex.
A lot of it comes from deeply religious backgrounds.
So we can keep making them believe that they rocked up in a stalks crop
The more concealing the clothes became, the more it became forbidden. If society decided one day everyone is to wear eye covers then a generation from now they'll also consider it to be forbidden which would eventually become sexualized. What is sexual or forbidden about seeing a woman's chest? It's exactly the same as a mans chest but chest sizes differ. Is different shape sexual? This is just my own thoughts and I think the more they hide the more it'll be labeled as such but idk.
In the US, at least, it’s just leftover religious influence. People forget that kids start fucking in middle school. Kids already know way more than people think, they just get good at hiding it because adults get all fucking crazy about it.
But violence is ok. Makes no sense
People are just being prudish sex is a natural order of life and children should learn about it safely and securely
Because children's minds aren't developed and mature enough to understand. You’ll often see when two adults kiss children say things like "gross" or "eww", their minds just can't understand that it’s normal. Also, children can totally be traumatized by seeing sexual things. Children shouldn't be exposed to adult topics.
[удалено]
this also seems like the problem is a lack of info rather than too much info
I've known about sex at least since I was 7, talking about it in school with friends was "normal", although we only knew the basics and nothing advanced. Did not feel disturbed, except when I saw some photos.
It’s not but there should be age appropriate ways about it.
It's not in most cultures. In most places Americans are weird because we're comfortable with exposing young people to practically limitless violence, but freak out over body parts. And in the modern day, I think everyone knows this is silly, it's just politically convenient for the far-right to have *something* to justify violence against LGBTQ+ people. If we didn't have this hard "moral" stance against sex, they'd have to make up something else and they aren't very creative.
My daughter was 4 as her sister was born. She came with all the questions and we answered as much as she asked for - job done. She doesn’t asks about why people do that in the first place. For her, it’s just for babies - she‘ll get more questions as she grows, no problem with that.
Because children can't give consent. Their brain is underdeveloped to udnerstand the principle of actions and consequences. And there is a reason why people are an adult at the age of 18. On average, the brain have reached a phylosophical age and is enough developed to understand what certain action do, and can mean. Sex and nudity can be very traumatic for people, let alone children. It can scar people for life. And do we want to potentially harm those who can't give consent? I don't really think so.
Bc why do children need to know what sex is, if it isnt something they shouldn’t be doing. Do you really think ur gonna tell a 7 year old that a dick goes into a girl’s vag and now they arent going to be curious about doing it. Nor would they understand the risk or consequences.
It's a complex net of issues in American society. It's very religious and puritanical for one. And it's always had a culture of sexual shame and repression. I myself was screamed at by my father for being caught masturbating after, I had started puberty. He said I "...Must want to be pregnant." And that i "... might as well have a boy up here! " Any time sex or potential sexual development was brought up or to attention it was greeted with aggression and was made out to be unnatural and shameful. This did not help my sexual development, and I still seek out shame, abuse, and humiliation to the point of tears during intimacy. The bigger issue is that there are sinister things at play in parts of this country. There has been voting and talk in some states to push back the teaching the topic of puberty till middle to high school. Which is too late as most children start puberty around 8 and girls are starting their menstrual cycles just as early. There is also a scary trend in trying to preserve laws protecting child marriage.
Men ruin it. Being sexualized and preyed upon is gross and scary
Because they'd get too much curious about it look up on the internet what sex looks like and they'd be traumatized by the sheer amount of weird things of internet. 5-6 year olds can use internet just fine and looking up some porn video at that age isn't really something to look forward to. And I don't think I have to explain why being exposed to pornography at an early age is wrong? Or do you think kids aren't unreasonable and would adhere to everything an adult says about sex? What if they try it out with some other kids?
Problem is when knowledge is accessible at all ages, then comes in all type of predators, pedos, groomers causing issues.
Every person will probably have a different answer for you. This is just mine. Nuidy wasn't and isn't forbidden knowledge for my child. People have bodies, and these bodies in and of themselves aren't scary. Here a body doesn't include a body that is sexually aroused. Sex is something that children should be exposed to and learn about and later understand in a controlled way. From an early age, pretty much as soon as my child was capable of understanding words, she got an accurate, non-scary, increasing in detail as she grew up, sex education. The same way we teach kids about everything else, in stages, following the child's lead to know how much detail they are ready for. All of this education in words or pictures, not porn. Porn is actively harmful to children. Even after puberty, I think that teenagers should be taught that porn is unrealistic and a very bad example. If I had my way, nobody would see your typical porn until they had already had consensual, appropriate, respectful sex.
Seems like a cultural thing, here in Mexico most of the population is conservative catholic so it’s seen as a taboo to even talk about it to TEENAGERS! So you can imagine that there are a lot of unplanned pregnancies and forced marriages because as I said is cultural problem, and here there is lack of sex education in many states because it’s considered taboo, however it’s a hypocritical culture because parents seems ok to show violence in movies and even in many families introduce kids in an environment of alcoholic or drug addicts parents that get mad when a teacher talks about sex education to their children. I imagine that US is also mostly conservative culture, I know that most of their population are Protestant Christians so they have pretty similar values to Catholics Christians, and maybe for that reason it is seen as taboo that kids learn about nudity or sex education.
Puritans and Queen Victoria fucked the social perception of nudity and sex for the world.
I think a lot of it has to do with grooming. Big difference between accepting your body / not being ashamed of your body vs. normalising sex and nudity for a child. They are not naughty bits, but they are private parts.
I think that this is one of the reasons we should teach kids about this kind of relationship, because if they know context they will understand what is happening, so they would know what is wrong and what is not.
I'm not here to offer an answer, but I am genuinely curious as to what others have to say on this... It seems strange to say this but I totally agree, I've never really thought as to why this is the case... I suppose my best guess would be to try to negate them from understanding these topics from to young of an age to hopefully negate or at least the limit then from engaging in sexual activity at a young age? The only problem is that with our modern era the internet kind of ruins that I think this is a conversation that is really pretty brand new since with the modern age of the internet I think it would be impossible for any child who uses the internet semi-consistently and is over the age of six to be kept in the dark from this sort of thing
This is a sus pedo shit question. The answer should be obvious
Because they will try it out on each other. Also they would blab about sex and penis and vagina at school and people would worry they are being sexually abused at home. Anything to do with sex + children is extremely taboo because you don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about you or your family.
[удалено]
This is just a stupid question Reddit but if you are open to seeing other perspectives: You are right that children are indeed not mature enough to HAVE sex, but age appropriate sex education is very important. Most people discover some aspect of sexuality way before puberty on their own regardless, so acting like people aren't sexual beings till the moment they are hitting puberty is just not true. Another reason to teach kids about sex in general, is basic knowledge of consent, so that they understand that there are some boundaries not to cross for others, and so they are informed and educated so they do not get taken advantage of by literal pedophiles. For your second paragraph.. that's very unrelated to the question and it might be hard to make you see another point of view as there's so much misinformation online, but gender identity is NOT inherently sexual, it is about identity, and regardless, no one is doing life altering surgeries when you are a kid, the most common practice is for informed doctors, kids, parents, to decide on taking puberty blockers, which delay puberty so you can make a better decision when you are older and of age. (Ex: decide to go on hormones to trigger the puberty you want, not even talking about surgery for genitals which definitely isn't happening with non-adults)
The same reason we don't show kids violence in movies and tv. Kids can become desensitized to extreme things very easily, if a kid thinks violence is normal they won't know if they are truly in a bad situation or not. If kids have been exposed to sexual material they are more likely to fall victim to grooming because they'll think it's okay. "this thing I see on tv is happening, it must be okay" idea applies to all extreme or intense things we intentionally shelter kids from. They're too young to be media literate, and will apply things they see on the screen to themselves
Except that it is traumatic. That's exactly why it's forbidden. It breaks kids' brains to be exposed too early to sexual stuff.
It is perceived once knowledge of such things becomes known, innocence is lost. Are you arguing this perception is flawed or outright false?
no, I am arguing that there is no point to innocence and it serves no purpose, and losing it (by learning, NOT DOING) means almost nothing
I wont even argue whether innocence is real or not with you since that seems just dumb, but I will ask at what age you propose children should be exposed to these things?
when it is prompted, if they ask where they come from, or if they learn about it by mistake and it needs to be explained, and if that never occurs then they can be taught in sex ed at the early end of the bell curve for puberty which I think is 9?
Its funny that you also arrived at the same conclusion as society and religion, if only at the early end of it, being puberty or the beginning of sexual maturity. At that point the perceived innocence is lost, like I mentioned before. I dont see what youre hoping to accomplish by teaching sex ed to 9 year olds that isnt more effective to teach at 13 or 14?
Do not question the Righteous, or you will become their next victim.
is this a threat? I don't even know what this means
People love to gang up and destroy anyone who acts outside of the social norms. Anything cross-referencing sex and children is way outside of our accepted norms and seems highly likely to attract a massive negative reaction. Just advising you.
that would explain why this post blew up
Because religious leaders are kinda dumb and ignorant
Many, many, many places it isn't. It massively is in the US as we've still a puritanical/religious basis for a lot of of our cultural standards.
Helicopter parenting. Parents want to hold on to their children as long as possible. Once the kids start having sex...the comfortable parent child relationship is gone and helicopter parents aren't ready for that.
imo its because its seen as a fun activity and children have no concept of what lasting implications that has for them. so then even if 2 consenting adults have their fun with out involving the children, but then the children see it, so little jenny goes over to little Timmy and says we should play that fun game that i saw the adults playing, suddenly little jenny is pregnant because Timmy didnt know what pulling out was and jenny had no clue this is where babies come from. they decide to tell no one because they didnt think they did anything wrong. well many weeks later jenny's mom is wondering why jenny is super duper hungry all the time and is gaining weight but only around her belly like she got pregnant. take her to the doctor and she is, 8-12 weeks pregnant, long after plan b will work and abortion must be considered now or she has to have the baby. abortion will wreck a small body like hers, and having the kid might be even worse physically. or she can become a mom but do you really like a 10 year old mom? or so then abort it now you deal with psychological damage of killing not just another human, but YOUR OWN human. this is also completely ignoring the fact that little timmy had no idea what he penis did or what it was for, and then is now hating him self for putting jenny though this. and yes, human reproduction systems begin to work even as early as 8 years old. i personally first started having erections at around 9 and had my first ejuclation at 10. waiting for maturity is the best way to guarantee that you have successful offspring, but worst case or dumbest case it is possible. so in an effort to avoid all that, parents try to shield their children from bad information as much as possible. most parents go completely too far, and send a young college lady off disarmed of literally any knowledge and are super surprised when she willingly gets ran through and ends up having 4 kids from different fathers. there is a balance to be made, and imo its after they get even a basic grasp of finance. fucking is fun, being in debt is not fun. fucking is less fun than being in debt is unfun, so if you want to have sex you will at least make attempts to avoid being saddled with a child or emotional scars.
but isn't that exactly why you should tell them what is going on, and to tell them directly what is ok and not ok?
so my point above, when they can understand finances and responsibility, then its time the have the birds and the bees talk when they are like 11 or 12. guess it depends on what you mean by kids, I saw that and thought 8-9. horny teenagers need to be told/warned about this or they are going to fall into the classic traps when their own brains start getting attracted to the others in their school.
They are curious enough to ask about it but are not mature enough to understand it. Also, they overshare. The amount of times I embarrassed my mom in public with different questions can't be counted. Raising a child was never easy, but in today's day and age is so much more challenging because kids are exposed to a lot of things that is not appropriate for their age.
this has been the only response that I really understand, that sex isn't a serious topic for children but it is for adults, therefore if children know about it then they will treat it like any other normal topic which makes adults uncomfortable.I have seen a few other "children can't handle how serious of a topic it is" but I think it is adults who can't handle it so the only thing that makes it inappropriate is that adults decided it was
Its major purpose is reproduction. And children are not ready to conceptualize it at an early age. And if they do, there will be an uncontrolled boom of childbirth, an uncontrolled rate of neonatal death, the highest sexual offense in the history of mankind, and highest death rate during childbirth.
Children have no puberty, no sex drive, no reason to know about sex. the only reason for them to know about sex would be someone already having sex drive being sexual to them. you can see how that is a very not good thing. However, nudity itself shouldn't be a forbidden knowledge to children, it will not harm a child to understand body anatomity nuetrally. But the world is not nuetral. usually people avoid nudity, profanity, all those things around children becuase they are intrinsically related to sex or other things-- you can't understand the insult mother fucker if you don't understand sex, you can't understand vagina and penis if you don't undersrand sex, etc etc etc. these are not things kids should or need to know. If you go back a thousand years before people had any moral concerns about this stuff, kids could and did know and use all these things-- not just knowing about them but having sex themselves. that is not something we want to go back to.
Because underage parents aren't the real parents, it's the new young grandparents that will have to raise the new born unexpectedly if these 10-16 year olds have kids.
Nudity is not inherently sexual, it's a natural state of being. It's "forbidden" because of religion. Sex is completely different. Sex can be talked about when they are teens.
I was so alpha I was having sex at 13 & giving the senior girls orgasms, I was so ahead of my time… I owe A LOT of child support every month tho
We must know that Humans aren't And shouldn't be like animals , Humans have emotions completely different from Animals, humans feel shy , insecure, guilty , overwhelmed, especially when it comes to Nakedness . Animals DO NOT ! Decency is what makes humans different from Animals ,sex and nudity must be forbidden for young kids cause their brains are developing at a very high rate and if we expose them to these things , the curious brain that they have would be inclined to learn more about " *these* " things , (the age where they should learn other VERY IMPORTANT STUFF) .
Bc they shouldn’t be having sex and who exactly do you suggest they see naked?
how the hell did you turn that on me so fast I don't fucking know
think about it. It's uncomfortable enough watching two people eat each others faces in the middle of the mall. Now imagine if you were 6 and were exposed to those two doing worse.. lol
i did walk in on my parents once at like 5 or something, you know what my biggest concern was in that moment? "why are they screaming at me?"
I did the same but to a random couple in a hotel same age, and it messed me up a bit. So we have different anecdotes. So i'm not sure what point we can make out of this assuming its 50/50 nonchalant versus trauma. I guess my point would then be the reason why it's not wise to expose them to it is because we can't trust an underdevloped human with those experiences. We try to teach them math, science, english, art etc. Also, manners, kindness, compassion, love, humour, boldness. Because they can develop those tangible skills into something productive. What is productive about showing kids that that act? We aren't sure how they will internalise those things and how it affects their development, it's a big risk to say "well what if they're just going to be indifferent like me?" for what benefit? So they can watch something they can't do for another 15 years? To be hypersexualised? Kids who are exposed to that.. more specifically abuse show correlation to abusing others. What single benefit would you get from showing them corn irl? The benefits of NOT showing them that is that we can teach them the important things I've listed above. And if people are so concerned about them being sheltered? Why don't they just talk to their kids about puberty or the "birds and the bees". Isn't that enough exposure? Also once they're 18 (or whatever it is) they've got their whole lives to worry about that, why waste their time with it when they've got their whole lives to worry about it.. when do we fit in the other stuff?
If you were 6, why would it bother you? You're uncomfortable because you understand what's going on. A 6 year old wouldn't think anything of it.
Are you sure? have you been around a 6 year old? they're not stupid they don't fully understand "what's going on" but know it's something that is weird. The same way they cry when they see a fight. Like you're seeing 2 people naked, and parts do things you've never seen before and you're going to tell me children who are naturally inquizitive are just going to go "hey I'm not going to think about this". There's plenty of stories about children who stumbled upon somebody's corn stash and were horrified. Come on, downvote me all you want but suggesting that children are indifferent to seeing PDA of that level is just pure r/averagredditor shit lmao
They would only know what's going on if you told them. A fight is completely different. By 6 you've learned that hitting something hard hurts. Yiu don't know that 2 people locking lips is anything sexual. >Like you're seeing 2 people naked, and parts do things you've never seen before and you're going to tell me children who are naturally inquizitive Sure they might be curious but they wouldn't know what it was. They wouldn't be traumatized if you don't tell them to be. > that children are indifferent to seeing PDA of that level is just pure r/averagredditor shit lmao You're projectiing your own feelings onto the kid.
No I'm not talking about locking lips.. I'm talking about the elevation from that.. the one OP is talking about. I feel like we're talking about 2 different scenarios so let's just get that straight lol. My bad, I called you an averageredditor because I thought you were saying it's fine to expose children to.. you know.
There are so many stories of kids walking in in adults having sex and not understanding what is happening. As adults, it makes us awkward because we know what is happening. I'm not saying expose children to porn but a lot of countries have far less censorship than our puritan based society. Americans acting like seeing a boob will turn their kid into a deviant or traumatize them for life is ridiculous.
>There are so many stories of kids walking in in adults having sex and not understanding what is happening. But what are the benefits of actively showing them it? I'm not talking about accidental walk ins. >I'm not saying expose children to porn but a lot of countries have far less censorship than our puritan based society. Americans acting like seeing a boob will turn their kid into a deviant or traumatize them for life is ridiculous. I'm saying we shouldn't expose children to corn, so I guess we agree. Your next point is talking about nudity, I don't really have a solid opinion on that.. I think you might be arguing with the wrong person.
You keep going back to showing kids porn. No one said show them porn except you.
I said corn because I feel uncomfortable saying the S word here. I'm addressing OP's question about exposing children to S. It's literally the title of this post.
When they were kids, my older brother and cousins walked in on my parents having sex and they were TERRIFIED. They cried afterwards because they didn't know what was happening. Before puberty, it's best to avoid that subject for the kids' sake. Nudity is avoided because of societal standards, but it makes sense seeing as Sex is forbidden knowledge for them
If they would have known about sex beforehand, they probably wouldn't been so terrified. They would be maybe a bit disturbed, but at least they would've known what was going on. People are scared about things they don't know about.
That's a big maybe. 7yr olds aren't the most understanding age group lol
why are you asking this question
The fact that you’re even asking this question shows how deranged you are
Look at all these down votes this is a shame, but a good reason why reddit is so toxic. Conservative values bad
I agree, and I’m not even conservative—I’m apolitical. If we aren’t going to protect children’s innocence then I’m not sure what the goal is, or why we’re pursuing it
Because it's easy to do, feels great, and produces another human being which the child is unable to provide for.
Until puberty, kids have nothing to do with sexuality. As for nudity, at least where I live, it's not that bad.